Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

"Where did it go?" I asked.

"Down the fire stairs, end of the hall." He had to raise his voice over the sound of fire alarms, but his voice was dull, distant. Maybe later if I was good, I could go into shock, too.

I didn't hear the door open behind me, but Ramirez yelled, "Anita!"

I half-turned as I ran for the door. "I'm taking the stairs, you take the elevators."

He yelled, "Anita!"

I turned, and he tossed one of the cell phones to me. I caught it one-handed awkwardly against my chest.

"If I get to ground and haven't found it, I'll call," he said.

I nodded, jamming the phone into my back pocket, running for the door. I found it. I had the Browning out now. There was no oxygen-filled room now. We'd see if bullets worked as well as knives. I pushed the heavy fire door with my whole body, until it was flat against the wall, and I knew the thing wasn't behind the door. Then I hesitated on the concrete landing. The sprinklers were going in here, too, like waterfalls down the concrete steps. The fire alarms filled the space with high-pitched echoes. I looked up at the rising stairs, then down. I had no idea which way it had gone. It could have gotten off on any floor above or below me.

Dammit, I needed to find this thing. I wasn't sure why it felt so urgent that it not get away, but I'd been right about the coming dark and the corpses. I'd trust my judgment. They were just animated corpses, just a kind I'd never seen before. But they were dead, and I was a necromancer. Technically, I could control any form of the walking dead. I could sometimes sense a vampire when it was near. I took a breath and centered myself in a solid line, drew my power in, flung it out, searching, my back to the door, the water pouring down on me, the scream of the fire alarms so piercing it was hard to think. I sent that «magic» outward, up the stairs, down the stairs like an invisible line of fog.

I jerked upright. I'd felt something like a pull on the end of a fishing line. Down, it had gone down. If I was wrong, there was nothing I could do about it. But I didn't think I was wrong. I started running down the wet cement steps, one hand on the banister to catch myself when I slipped, the other with the gun pointed upward. There was a woman crumpled outside the next landing, lying across the door, motionless, but breathing. I turned her face to the side so she wouldn't be drowned in the sprinklers, and kept going. Down, it was going down, and it wasn't taking time to feed. It was running, running away from us, running away from me.

I got to my feet, sliding on the wet steps, only my death grip on the slippery metal banister catching me before I fell. I lost my connection to the creature when I slipped. I just couldn't hold the concentration and do everything else. The sprinklers stopped abruptly, but the fire alarms went on and on, more piercing without the water to muffle it. I pushed to my feet and started running again. Very distant, far down below, there was a scream. I vaulted the next turn of banister, sliding down the wet metal, almost going head first over the next turn of railing. I was going as fast as I could, faster than was safe. I ran and slid and stumbled down the stairs, and all the time the growing sense that I was going to be too late. That no matter how fast I ran, I wouldn't get there in time.

I COULDN'T REGAIN the link with the thing without stopping and concentrating. I made the decision to keep chasing, and hoped I didn't miss it as I ran past the doors. Besides, on the 19th floor there was a huddled group of water-soaked patients with a nurse. They all pointed wordlessly down. At 17 there was a man with a bouquet of flowers with a bloody lip that babbled at me and pointed down. The door opened on 14, and nurse in a pink smock rushed out and ran into me. She screamed, jerking back against the wall, staring at me with huge eyes. She had a baby in each arm, in those little blankets. One even had its little pink knit hat still in place. Both babies were screaming, their high cat-like wails competing with the fire alarm.

The nurse just stared at me, unable to speak or afraid to. Maybe it was the gun, or maybe not all the blood had washed away in the sprinklers. I raised my voice above the noise, "Is it on this floor?"

She just nodded. She was mumbling something over and over. I had to lean into her to understand it. "It's in the nursery. It's in the nursery. It's in the nursery."

I didn't think my adrenaline could get any higher. I was wrong. I could suddenly feel the blood rushing through my body, feel my heart like a painful thing in my chest. I opened the door, scanning the hallway with the Browning. Nothing moved. The corridor stretched long and empty with too many closed doors for comfort. The fire alarm was still screaming, making my skin tight with the noise. But even over the screech of the alarm I could hear the babies

… crying … screaming.

I slipped the phone out of my pocket, hit the button he'd told me to hit earlier, and started jogging down the hallway towards the sounds. Ramirez answered it in the middle of the first ring. "Anita?"

"I'm on maternity. It's the 14th floor. A nurse says the thing is in the nursery." I was at the first corner. I threw myself against the far wall, but didn't really stop. I'm usually more cautious around corners, but the crying was getting closer, more piteous.

"I'm on my way," Ramirez said.

I hit the button that cut us off, but still had it in my hand when I came around the next corner. There was a body pushed through a pane of wired safety glass. I could tell it was a man, but that was about all. The face looked like hamburger. I stepped on a stethoscope on the floor below him. Doctor or nurse. I didn't check for a pulse. If he was alive, I didn't know how to help him. If he was dead, it didn't matter. One last door, then a long expanse of window. But I didn't need to see the long window to know it was the nursery. I could hear the babies crying. Even over the fire alarm the sound of those panicked cries made my heart flutter, made me want to run and help them. A hard wiring response that I hadn't even known I had made me reach for the door. I still had the phone in my left, and made one attempt to shove it in my pocket. The bite on my left hand made me awkward. The phone slipped, and I let it fall to the floor.

The handle turned, but the door stopped just inches open. I put my shoulder into it, and realized it was a body, an adult body. I backed off and hit it again, moving it by painful inches. There was a woman screaming, not just the babies. I couldn't open the door. Dammit!

Then the window crashed outward in a spray of glass and a body. A woman hit the ground and lay there sprawled and bleeding. I left the wedged door and went for the window. There were shards of glass like small swords on the bottom of the break. But I'd taken falls in Judo higher than this. I'd practiced falling for years. I glanced in to check one thing. The herd of little plastic cribs was pushed to either side. I had room. I took a running leap at it and threw myself over the broken glass, rolling as I fell. I only had one free hand to slap the floor with and take the impact of the fall, but I wanted the gun in my hand ready to fire. I hit the floor, and the force of my blow, the jump, whatever, was still there, still rolling me. I used it to come to my feet before I even knew what was in the room.

I didn't so much see what was happening as take pictures of isolated things. I registered the overturned cribs: a tiny, tiny baby lying on the floor like a broken doll, the center of its body eaten away, like the center sucked out of a piece of candy; cribs still standing upright splattered with blood, some with tiny twisted bodies inside, some empty except for the blood; then in the far corner was the monster.